Here We Come A Caroling
by sillyzilly
Summary: Christmas caroling, Stars Hollow-style.(LL)


_Here We Come A-Caroling_

Luke supposed he had lost the Christmas caroling battle before it had even begun. Granted, it hadn't been much of a fair fight. Weeks earlier, she had bounced up to the diner counter in that way she had, leaned in, and crooked her finger at him, half daring him to come closer. She probably hadn't needed to go to all the trouble of wearing glossy lipstick and the perfume she knew he liked so much. The confident sway of her walk had always been effective on its own, and six months of knowing intimately what lay behind it had only made him a more willing victim.

Rory wasn't coming caroling, she'd said; her daughter was too deep into the mire of finals to just take the evening off, and somehow, mother-daughter Christmas caroling didn't register with the Yale faculty as a valid academic excuse. But the Gilmores hadn't missed caroling since Rory had been in diapers, and it just wouldn't be the same by herself. Didn't he want to take part in this Gilmore tradition?

It wasn't exactly that he had given in blindly and immediately. "I don't sing in public," he'd said, glancing up from the stockroom order form he was working on.

"What, because you're Bono's biggest rival in private?" she'd teased. And then somehow—something to do with the sheen of her lips and the amazing smell of her skin, but also with the look of unguarded hope in her eyes—he had not only agreed to attend the annual Stars Hollow Festival of Carols, but had offered up the diner as a warm place to relax at the end of the evening.

Which was why he found himself standing in the town square on a perfectly good Saturday night, freezing his butt off and wondering why he wasn't curled up with Lorelai under a blanket somewhere. Lorelai herself was perched on the steps of the gazebo, chattering away to a well-bundled Sookie. "She's caroling for two, you know," explained Jackson as he wrapped Davey in a third layer of fleece. Luke couldn't figure out how Lorelai could look so amazing under so many layers of wool and down, but he had to admit that her snow-bunny hat and the illumination of the gazebo's twinkle lights on her face made winter look far more appealing than he ever remembered.

In fact, he thought, that pretty much summed up his experience of winter so far this year. Luke had never much cared for winter. After his birthday, the air always took on a bitter edge. The sky became gray, flat, and formless. And even in its best years, his truck never ran quite as smoothly after November. But this year, a quiet stroll in the second snow of the season—Rory had dibs on the first, he knew, and was content to claim the second—and frosty mornings spent under the covers with Lorelai had convinced him that perhaps self-induced Seasonal Affective Disorder was overrated.

"All right, all right, everybody," called Miss Patty, clapping her hands. "It looks like everybody's here, so let's pass out some sheet music and get going." Somebody shoved a sheaf of music into Luke's hand. "If you get lost, we'll be using the same route as always: go up Peach Street, turn left at the giant rooster and head to down Walnut to Elm. Then we'll take Elm back here, make one trip around the square, and end at the diner. Any questions?"

Kirk raised his hand. "Will we be making the customary stop at my mother's house?" he asked. "Because we'll need to hurry if we are. She said she was going line-dancing at eight p.m., and that she didn't want to wait around for us all night."

"Well," said Miss Patty with a helpless glance in Taylor's direction, "I suppose we could do the traditional route backwards, and get to your house faster. Would that help?" Taylor furrowed his eyebrows in disapproval, but nodded.

"Oh, yes," said Kirk. "Mother says she likes to be in the Christmas spirit, but her crocodile boots wait for no man, even Santa."

Starting up Elm Street, Luke felt Lorelai's gloved hand slip into his, and heard her steps fall into rhythm with his own, the snow on the sidewalk crunching underneath her feet.

"Thanks for coming with me," she said with a smile. "It's nice to have someone to sing with. Rory and I did this every year until she went to Yale."

"Well, I'm not really singing," he said, trying and failing to hide a smile.

"Oh, you'll sing, mister. You will sing," she said, swinging their joined hands.

Looking down the street, he noticed that many houses were dark. "It looks like a lot of people are out of the house tonight," he said. "I guess it's that busy time of year."

"Well, you'll notice that most of those houses belong to people who are actually part of this caroling group," said Lorelai. "That's why the Festival of Carols is two nights long: you're really not supposed to come both nights, otherwise there would be nobody to sing to. Tomorrow night, it's our job to stay home and be sung to. Haven't you ever done this before?"

"Do you think I've ever done this before?" he asked.

"Point taken."

"So we're just singing for the sake of singing, without a real audience?"

"Well, we're nothing if not enthusiastic around here. It's not about being heard; it's about peace on earth and goodwill towards men. It's about the _spirit_ of the thing."

"Page three, everybody; page three," called Miss Patty as the group stopped in front of a house displaying signs of life. Pages rustled as everybody flipped to "We Wish You A Merry Christmas," and Kirk's pitch pipe hummed. "I sang in the Stars Hollow Boys' Chorus as a child," he explained to nobody in particular.

As the crowd burst into song, Luke listened to the voices around him. The rhythmic rattle of Miss Patty's maracas punctuated each line, and several of the older women shook strings of jingle bells hung around their wrists. Beside him, he could hear Lorelai's clear alto ringing out. Sookie was tuneless but enthusiastic in the background, and he was surprised to hear Jackson improvising a tenor line in an attempt to drown her out.

When the time came to repeat the chorus, Luke felt a familiar pair of fingers poking his ribs in time with Miss Patty's maracas. "We _wish_ you a merry _Christ-mas_; we _wish_ you a merry _Christ-mas;_ we _wish_ you a merry _Christ-mas, _and a _hap_-py _New Year_," sang Lorelai, putting extra emphasis on the notes where she tapped Luke's ribs. He tried to gather her fingers and hold both of her hands in one of his, the better to get his revenge, but she laughed and twirled around, keeping her hands out of reach. She spun into him and leaned in closer. "Sing with me, Luke," she whispered.

And so he had. Not loudly and not exactly on key, either, but he had joined in the song.

Making the final tour of the town square, Luke felt Lorelai's arm slide around his waist; he shifted to draw his own arm across her shoulders. "Mmmmm, I'm ready for some of Sookie's mint chocolate cocoa," she murmured, reveling in his warmth.

"You mean you'd rather have hot chocolate than my coffee?" he baited her.

She grinned up at him. "Well, I'll have some of your _coffee_ later," she said, waggling her eyebrows. "But in the meantime, who says I have to choose? Is there no such thing in the world as mint mocha?"

He rolled his eyes. "I don't know how you function. How do you sleep at all?" He fished in his pocket for the keys to the diner and unlocked the door, flipping on the lights on the way in.

Inside, Sookie took charge, supervising Jackson as he hauled out the giant kettles of mint cocoa she had delivered earlier, followed by heaping platters of cookies. "I just couldn't help myself," she giggled. "I was just going to make cocoa, and then I was just going to make one little batch of butter cookies. To dip in the chocolate, you know. But I hadn't made gingerbread in such a long time…." She trailed off. It seemed that Sookie had found several long-lost recipes; Luke counted at least six different kinds of cookies on the platters she brought out.

The diner was nearly empty when Luke picked up a dishrag and began to wipe down the counter. Christmas caroling or no Christmas caroling, it would be all too soon before the breakfast crowd would be beating down his door.

Jackson carried the last of the empty carafes out to his truck and took Sookie by the hand, leading her outside as she called out the next day's dinner menu to Lorelai. The bell over the door jangled as it swung shut, leaving only the contented silence of evening. Lorelai dimmed the lights and smiled at him. "Thanks again, Luke. This was great. And the caroling wasn't so bad, was it?"

"I don't ever want to think about Miss Patty singing 'Santa Baby' again," he said. "But other than that, no. It wasn't so bad."

"Awww, I'm glad," she said. "Now, come on. Put the rag down. We can deal with all of this later."

He began to protest; Kirk would be sitting on the steps of the diner at five a.m., and woe to him who wasn't ready with sparkling tables and a bowl of hot oatmeal. But before he even got to the part about Kirk, she had already hooked a finger through his belt loop and was pulling him toward the stairs. "I'll help clean up later," she promised. "For now, let's just go upstairs. The cocoa wasn't enough. I want some _coffee_."

And who was he to object?


End file.
